Everybody has something to tweet about guns

People gather outside the White House to participate in a candle light vigil to remember the victims at the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. ALEX WONG, GETTY IMAGES

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A bicycle at a protest on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House in favor of gun control was held in reaction to the school shooting in Connecticut. LUKE SHARRETT, THE NEW YORK TIMES)

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Frank DíAngelis, right, Columbine High School Principal at time of the 1999 school massacre and still principal today is comforted by long time friend Cindy Stevenson, Superintendent of JEFCO Schools after a news conference where Di'Angelis talked about the Connecticut School Shooting at Jefferson County School headquarters in Golden, Colo. In a state that was rocked by the 1999 Columbine school massacre and the Aurora movie theater shooting less than six months ago, Friday's shootings renewed debate over why mass shootings keep occurring and whether gun control can stop them. ED ANDRIESKI, ASSOCIATED PRESS

People gather outside the White House to participate in a candle light vigil to remember the victims at the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. ALEX WONG, GETTY IMAGES

The first tweets came in the first minutes, and many were about guns.

And so it went, on Friday. As news of a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn. became more clear and more horrifically vivid – 28 people shot dead, 20 of them children — the tweets and the Facebook posts and the chatter on all other manner of social media grew in volume and vitriol.

Often, still, about guns.

It makes sense. There are, by some estimates, more than 300 million guns in America, enough to put a firearm in the hands of virtually every man, woman and child in this country. Right or wrong, America is a firearm-obsessed country.

So, right or wrong, pro or con, much of the commentary in the wake of Sandy Hook was about firearms.

"This is a wake-up call that we have a gun-violence epidemic on our hands," said Paul Wilson, who lost his wife, Christy, in the Seal Beach shooting of October 2011. There, a lone gunman — also wearing body armor – allegedly walked into the Salon Meritage hair salon and opened fire, killing eight people.

"It (gun violence) is everywhere," Wilson said in an interview following a Facebook request. "It's become a liability for us to go to the salon, or walk into a theater, or send our children to school. Things have got to change."

Others offered an opposing point of view.

"We don't need a tighter government," Jennifer Young, 39, a Newport Beach mother of an 11-year-old boy and 9-month-old daughter, and a firm believer in the rights of private citizens to own guns to protect themselves, wrote on Facebook.

"What America needs," Young added, "is a moral makeover."

The conversation isn't new. Gun commentary was huge on Twitter and Facebook and other social media in the wake of the 2011 Gabrielle Giffords' shooting and after the Aurora, Colorado shooting in July, 2012 and the mall shooting in Oregon last week.

But some wondered if Friday's massacre – in which elementary school children seemed to be specifically targeted and grade school age survivors were urged to run through a playground with their eyes closed so they wouldn't witness the horror around them – might spark something new in the gun debate.

"I think gun-control laws have to be transformed," wrote Robyn Williams, 40, a public relations specialist in Tustin, on Facebook.

"There is no way (lawmakers) can look the other way with the recent cost of so many lives."

Others, naturally, disagree.

"I don't think it will change the conversation except to further polarize the two sides. I believe that both sides of the issue will use this episode to argue for their position," wrote Erik Priedkalns, a Santa Monica attorney who comments under the name Bob Sponge Man.

"The gun control opponents will argue that if some of the teachers (or whomever) were armed, they could have protected the kids and taken out the shooter. They will further argue that even if there were stricter gun control laws, the shooter would have been able to get his guns.

"The gun control advocates will argue that stricter laws would have prevented this guy from getting his guns."

Public figures also used social media. Virtually all 489 members of the U.S. House of Representatives used Twitter or Facebook to express sadness about the Sandy Hook massacre. Only four used the word "guns" in their commentary, according to the online magazine Slate.

Those comments, by definition, were political.

"This touches us all so deeply, and it is long past time that we enacted sensible gun laws and school safety legislation," wrote U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer on her website.

J.D. Stoecker, a Cal State Fullerton graduate who works as a production assistant for ESPN at the network's headquarters in Bristol, Conn. – a 15-minute drive from Sandy Hook — responded by phone to a Facebook comment. He said he hopes the massacre will lead to "more control and regulations" when it comes to gun ownership.

John Manly, a Newport Beach attorney, military veteran and gun owner, agreed.

"I think we need to have a conversation in our country about violence and certainly firearms and who owns them needs to be included in that discussion," Manly wrote in a Facebook post.

But some people questioned by the Register, via Facebook, said the real issue isn't gun control.

"Should (guns) be as accessible as they are? That's a solid debate," wrote Cynthia Rupe, 38, a former Register writer and a Costa Mesa mother of two boys, ages 10 and 7.

"But I think a stronger focus should be on education about mental illness and personality disorders and the signs — because clearly, we are not dealing with people in their right mind who do such things."

Billy Folsom, 60, is a mechanic who lives in Costa Mesa.

"I'm sure that this will change the conversation with much rhetoric on both sides," Folsom said. "(But) whatever solutions we come up with will not change a thing in bad people's hearts."

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